About

Nova Minimal Fountain Pen

£104,008

pledged of £12,000 goal

1,684

backers

Precision machined from a solid piece of titanium or aluminium, the Nova is a fountain pen with a sleek, futuristic design. Coupled with a large, smooth #6 Bock nib (steel or titanium nibs available), it offers an excellent writing experience for both beginners and experienced fountain pen users alike.

A fountain pen is a powerful creative tool. Considered by many to be the smoothest of all writing instruments, it almost feels as if your ideas flow more freely as the nib glides effortlessly across paper. By using only the best materials, a minimal design and an excellent nib, the Nova is about creating a pen that you will look forward to create with, every day.

By backing this project you will be helping us create a unique writing instrument. Exclusive materials such as titanium need to be purchased in bulk, so we need your help to reach the minimum orders needed make this project a reality.

The Nova Aluminium is available in Satin Black or Comet Grey, and the Nova Titanium in a polished machined finish. Both the aluminium and titanium versions can be ordered with either a steel or titanium nib. Sets of pens are also available (see chart below).

Please note that you will specify nib size and colour AFTER the campaign has ended, at which point we will send you a survey asking you for both your pen options and delivery address. So please don’t panic if you pledge and don’t see where to tell us which nib size or colour you want, you’ll get an opportunity do so at the end of the campaign.

The Nova uses the wonderfully smooth Bock #6 nibs in stainless steel and titanium. The titanium nib is a semi-flex nib which allows you to create a thicker line width depending on how hard you press the pen down. The stainless steel nib does not have flex but is an equally smooth nib and provides an excellent writing experience.

Having reached £75K of funding we are also now offering a solid gold 14K stub nib.

Both the Nova Aluminium and Nova Titanium Standard come with a stainless steel nib.

The Nova Aluminium Ti and the Nova Titanium Deluxe come with a titanium nib.

The writing sample below will help you determine which nib size is right for you. The paper used is the Rhodia DotPad and the ink is Edelstein Sapphire. Writing width will vary depending on which type of paper you use, technique and brand of ink used.

We've created some great accessories for your Nova. We've designed a sleeve made from premium quality, top layer, natural vegetable-tanned leather to keep your pen safe.

You can also pledge for an extra nib if you want to experiment with another size or if you want to have both the steel and titanium nibs.

A converter is also available which allows you to use bottled inks as opposed to cartridges, which gives you access to a wider range of inks.

If you'd like to add an extra nib, sleeve or converter to your order, please increase your pledge by the amount detailed below. If, for example, you are pledging for a Nova Aluminium Ti pen at £53 you’d need to increase your pledge by £10 in order to receive a sleeve, which is a total pledge of £63.

Premium natural vegetable tanned leather

Schmidt K5 converter for using bottled inks

You can either "upgrade" your steel nib to a black nib (M nib size only) by adding £5 to your pledge or you add an additional black steel nib to your order by adding £13 to your pledge. For example, if you pledge at the £26 reward level for a Nova Aluminium with a polished steel nib you would need to add £5 (total of £31) in order to swap it for a black steel nib (M size only). However, if you wanted both the polished nib AND the black steel nib you would need to add £13 (total of £39).

The Nova fountain pen is designed to be used without posting the cap. The weight has been carefully distributed to avoid fatigue during long writing sessions.

Length (Length uncapped) – 139mm (128mm)

Aluminium Weight (Weight uncapped) – 29g (20g)

Titanium Weight (Weight uncapped) – 45g (32g)

Maximum diameter: 15.5mm

Grip diameter: 12mm

You can use the following refilling methods:

Short Standard Cartridge (fits one engaged, and one spare in the barrel)

The Nova Fountain Pen was designed by Adrien Cols and María Millan. We are part of Namisu, a small design studio situated near Edinburgh in the United Kingdom.

Risks and challenges

The main risks and challenges are as follows:

Production delays - We are working with extremely experienced machining and finishing suppliers that are used to handle quantities well over those that are usual on Kickstarter which means that there is little risk of a production bottleneck. Though it is unlikely, delays can still happen as machinery can break down, raw materials can arrive late etc. which can create unanticipated setbacks.

The project goal is over-funded - Pens are popular on Kickstarter so our funding goal could be exceeded significantly. If this occurs we may need to revise our production timetable slightly depending on the amount of backers we have, though it will remain the same unless we have more than 2500 backers.

Maintaining consistent quality - There are separate quality control procedures at every manufacturing step so defect rates are very low. We inspect every single pen for defects before it leaves our workshop and we have prior experience in making thousands of pens to the highest standard.

Shipping large volumes - All orders will be packaged and sent by a professional logistics warehouse so we will be able to pack shipments quickly and without mistakes.